In addition to marine mammal survey work, Ketos Ecology has considerable experience in monitoring North-east Atlantic seabirds to assess their distribution and relative abundance within an area. This work has included:

Seabird surveys: research

Ketos Ecology has had training in the ESAS scientific methods used to count seabirds at sea, since Caroline Weir spent three years on the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee's (JNCC) Seabirds at Sea Team, carrying out abundance and distributional surveys for seabirds within UK waters. Data on seabirds are collected within a 300 m band transect on one side of a survey vessel, with adaptations to the methodology to account for birds sitting on the water and for flying birds. These data are used to produce species maps to establish the seasonal distribution of seabirds in UK waters for conservation purposes.

Seabird surveys: offshore wind farms

Ketos Ecology has carried out seabird distribution and abundance surveys on several offshore wind farm sites within Britain and Ireland, in order to conduct Environmental Impact Assessments and ascertain the likely effect of the construction, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of the wind farm turbines on marine birds. There are concerns over both habitat loss and direct collision between birds and wind turbines, and data on flight heights and behaviour are therefore collected in addition to the standard transect protocol.

Seabird surveys: studies in Angola

The cetacean survey work carried out by Ketos Ecology from seismic survey vessels off Angola has provided a unique opportunity to collect data on the occurrence of seabirds in this poorly studied region.